In today's marketplace, software providers (i.e., developers and vendors) offer various types of software to members of the public. This software often includes content that was originally created for another software application. However, as content is duplicated or modified for different applications, management of the content becomes more difficult. In some cases, the software provider may need to restrict the availability or visibility of content to certain applications or customers. For example, based on the information of all content associated with an application, the software provider may wish to restrict content to certain software deployments. In other cases, the software provider may need to determine which content is used, duplicated and/or unused in a software release to the public. In still other cases, the content provider may wish to determine statistics about the usage of content in order to evaluate the importance or value of particular content.
Few tools are available for managing content that has been duplicated or modified. Current constraints for the use and reuse of content are not sufficient for a complex content management system. Consequently, it may be quite cumbersome for a provider to determine which content is actually used by a software application. Further, without knowledge of whether an application uses certain content, there is no efficient mechanism to eliminate unused content in a software application. Moreover, there is no convenient means to determine how valuable certain content is based on its use and reuse in various scenarios and applications.
Accordingly, in view of the foregoing, there is a need for systems and methods for providing software that overcomes one or more of the above-noted problems and/or disadvantages.